Donner Party Monument

Gorgeous and well-​done visitor center has recently opened and they have done a GREAT job. Definitely recommend to anyone visiting the Sierras, Truckee or just traveling on Hwy 80 to stop and visit the tragedy that is the Donner Party.
Admission to the visitor center is free, but you do have to pay to park. I think we paid $ 8.00 for parking, it was money well spent. The outside memorial is very fitting, the height of the stone base is the same height of the snow that plagued the emigrants. The bronze pioneer family is so high on top of the stone monument, they will never be under the snow again.
Once in the museum, please make sure your watch the movie, even if you have to wait for it… it is an older film, but it is so well told, you will learn much about the pioneers that emigrated from all over the country to California in search of a better life.
Highly recommended to all, if you pay attention it will garner and few found respect for Western history and you will learn in important lesson about not taking «short-​cuts».

Finally the new museum has opened! I’ve been stalking it for what seems like forever. They were in desperate need of an update, they’d had the same tiny museum for years! The museum contains not only info about the ill fated Donner party, but the history of the area including displays about the local Native Americans and the building of the railroad. Stop in for a visit if you are in the area!

We visited the memorial, and it was beautiful in the summer time. Great little trails to «hike» and a museum (which was unfortunately closed for renovations when we came). It was a lovely place to stop and reflect.

The day I visited was the day they opened a museum. It’s a must stop. A great history lesson that won’t take too much out of your day.

Very nice scenery. Calm and quiet too. There’s a large monument to the Donner Party, a trail and a lake. There’s a little museum that shows an obviously quite dated documentary about the Donner Party but informative. There are some actual artifacts they’ve uncovered in the museum. The museum isn’t very large but it’s worth it to learn some history about the country’s most unfortunate road trip.

Did you know that when you search ‘Donner Party’ on an iPhone it’ll try to auto-​correct your search to ‘Dinner Party’?
Too soon, Apple. Too soon.
Modern dark humor aside, I feel like I have a lot of things in common with the ill-​fated Donner party. For instance, they started out in Illinois with hopes of making it to the coast of California for greater opportunity and a better life and I recently made the cross-​country trek from Illinois to California (taking their very same path) in search of a land where I never have to shovel sh*tty snow off my car again. I guess the main difference here is that my crew and I made it unscathed on our journey while the Donner party… well, let’s just say that sh*tty snow didn’t exactly work in their favor.
But I gotta give it up to these true American Pioneers — they go hard. Like, whoa. Which brings me to the next similarity — I would totally eat human. I mean, obviously their circumstances weren’t the greatest and people probably wasn’t anyone’s first menu choice, but they did what they had to do to survive, even if that meant having to eat all their friends. For that reason, I try my hardest to surround myself with only the best and most selfless of friends who I know would have no problem offering up an arm or a leg, should I ever be in dire need of sustenance.
The Donner crew had 87 people in their group when they entered the mountains and in the end only 48 survived. The monument set up to honor these historic pioneers rests on the site of one of their (borrowed) cabins. The monument stands 22-​feet tall to mark how high the snow went that year and atop there’s a (rather busty) pioneer family looking westward.
If you walk a little further down the trail you’ll find a big rock with the names of the survivors carved on one side and the names of the lost carved on the other.
You won’t find any mention of cannibalism, or really much information at all, but it’s an interesting place to visit and the only stop on our 32-​hour drive that didn’t involve gassing up. It’s just off I-​80 and costs nothing to go to, so why not?

A must for anyone who is even vaguely interested in American history. I drag all the tourists who are visiting me in Tahoe here. Then we can spend all day after seeing the cute little museum making jokes about which one of us we would eat first. This review is mostly for the museum section — it’s small but worthy, kinda kitschy and adorable. Worth watching the little movie. Bringing kids here is a hoot — it helps them to imagine 1) how much snow there can be here and 2) yes, Americans can be cannibals too!

Love hanging here and a good place for a run in spring/​summer. The museum part is very interesting. If you’re in town and a fan of history… It’s worth the stop! Definitely check out the statue. Puts a gut wrenching perspective on the Donner party.
The parking lot is paid parking, But there is free parking on Donner Pass Rd.

I am fascinated by the Donner party story. This museum has a very good bookstore and I found books about the Donner party I didn’t know existed. You don’t have to pay to see the memorial statue and stuffed animals (not the cute kind, the creepy taxidermy kind) or peruse the books. I saw admission was $ 8 and almost turned around, but the woman behind the desk told me it was $ 8 per car… so bring your friends and family! I saw the short movie, which seemed about 40 years old and drew some snickers from the audience. The museum isn’t much-​truth be told, but I would argue everyone should go at least once, as the history of Truckee and the Sierras is worth knowing. The Donner party camps were burned to the ground, so not much left (sorry, no bones or kettles!) except a few buttons and the like. Eerie smallish mannequins in frontier clothes near a covered wagon… kind of nightmarish in a Twilight Zone way. There is some interesting stuff about the making of the first train tracks through the Sierra, that is, if you are interested in trains.